Federal Rule of Evidence 502 authorizes parties to enter nonwaiver orders and nonwaiver agreements in an attempt to remedy inadvertent disclosures and avoid waiver of the attorney-client privilege or the work-product doctrine. (As an aside, Rule 502 waiver preventions apparently do not apply to other evidentiary privileges). Questions arise, however, whether Rule 502 protections comport with Model Rule 1.6’s duty of confidentiality, and whether utilizing Rule 502 protections may nevertheless lead to ethical violations.

Steven M. Puiszis’s excellent article, Reconciling Federal Rule of Evidence 502 with Model Rule 1.6, published in DRI’s reputable For the Defense journal, identifies the problems and offers sound solutions. The article, accessible here, explains how 502(d) nonwaiver orders and 502(e) nonwaiver agreements may help avoid pre-production privilege-review costs but at the same time breach the lawyer’s confidentiality duty. Mr. Puiszis’ correctly points out that Rule 502 has “not lived up to its promise” of reducing costs, and posits that the reason is concern that using 502 orders or agreements may result in an ethical violation:

While the entry of a Federal Rule of Evidence 502(d) nonwaiver order or a Federal Rule 502(e) nonwaiver agreement may allow an attorney to recover privileged or protected information produced in discovery, an unauthorized disclosure has nonetheless occurred. . . . Accordingly, a disciplinary tribunal could conclude that the mere entry of a nonwaiver order does not qualify as a reasonable attempt to prevent disclosure as required by Model Rule 1.6(c).

The article contains a thorough discussion of the “reasonable steps” required to protect against inadvertent disclosures and inadvertent release of confidential information and concludes with 7 meaningful practice tips. The article is a must-read for in-house and outside counsel. My thanks to Mr. Puiszis and DRI for permission to reprint the article in this post.